by Juniper Bell
My Three Masters
Juniper Bell
This book is the sequel to My Three Lords
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It’s been years since the Marquis de Beaumont, London’s most notorious rake, felt anything more than sexual need. But something about the mysterious nursemaid Miranda Brown catches his eye. Why is her face so terribly scarred? Why does her speech slip into the cadence of the upper class? Why is she haunting his dreams?
Miranda is used to hiding in plain sight. After fleeing her vicious guardian, she’s wary of everyone, especially the Marquis, who stars in her most secret nighttime fantasies. But not even her fantasies could prepare her for the truth about the Marquis, the Duke, the Earl and the Countess…or for the intense passion that flares between them. As the secrets from her past begin to surface, she fears their fragile bond won’t survive, and that not even her three masters will be able to save her from a cruel fate.
An Exotika® Regency BDSM ménage erotica story from Ellora’s Cave
My Three Masters
Juniper Bell
Prologue
Once upon a time, I was a girl with a future. It shimmered on the horizon like a name day gift waiting to be unwrapped, more wondrous than I could ever imagine. If I thought about it—and I rarely did so, since my present held my full, fascinated attention—I assumed it would contain the usual marvels. Passionate gentlemen, glittering balls, blue twilights, fresh dew on a morning rose petal, sweet kisses, plump babies.
I had no knowledge about how such things were connected. If I’d been asked, I would have said that kisses must contain some sort of magic, a magic of the heart that, in due time, blossomed into a new life. Such innocence came to an end the day I turned sixteen. The day a whip, in the hands of my guardian, slashed across my cheek, forever scarring my face and rending the world as I knew it.
How can a whiplash destroy so much and yet launch a journey that transforms innocence into ecstasy beyond all comprehension? Perhaps I was correct, and there does exist a magic of the heart… Not to mention certain other parts of the anatomy…
Chapter One
Beaumont House—October 1812
The Marquise de Beaumont was dying. Her household followed her strict command to keep this fact from society at large; to do otherwise would invite the cruel vengeance in which their mistress specialized. All the servants carried on as usual. The housemaids dusted, the cook created ten-course dinners, the scullery maid cleaned the pots, the footmen stood ready to serve, the grooms tended the horses, the butler answered the door. If no one ate the meals, if the butler had to relay more and more creative reasons for the Marquise’s withdrawal from society, why, it was simply one more odd development in an already unusual household.
Only one servant was admitted into the Marquise’s presence.
The infamous Marquis de Beaumont sprawled in an armchair in the corner of his wife’s bedchamber and watched with hooded eyes as Miranda Brown quietly entered the room with a tray. On it sat a bowl. A pleasant steam rose from its depths, smelling of chicken and cozy winter nights. He watched her breathe it in, saw her eyelids flicker.
His wife’s nurse might dress like a wren; she might have hair the color of a prickly horsehide chair; she might say no words other than those required; she might have a hideous gash of a scar marring her face; but the Marquis knew the truth about her. Miranda Brown was a sensualist.
“Ma’am,” she murmured, coming close to the Marquise’s bed. The sick woman opened her eyes the merest slit. Iridescent teal shone through. Men had dueled to the death over those eyes. It was said the Duke of Annan had fled to the New World to forget her. She’d broken hearts from Scotland to Italy, and even India during a brief sojourn on the other side of the world. She’d fucked more men, in more different ways and combinations, than could fit inside Parliament. She’d blazed across London society as if she were a sexually overheated comet, and now she was dying in a solitary bed, attended by one plain girl and her much-despised husband.
It certainly made one reflect.
The Marquise waved one skeletal hand. “Couldn’t possibly,” she said. “Table.”
“Please,” said Miranda firmly. “I made it special. It has herbs in it that will give you ease and comfort.”
The Marquise opened her eyes another, more interested, slit. At this point, Beaumont knew, comfort was all she could hope for. She opened her mouth and let Miranda dribble a spoonful of soup between her lips.
The Marquis narrowed his eyes, homing in on Miranda’s plump bottom lip, which was caught between her white teeth as she concentrated on her task. Something didn’t quite ring true about Miranda. Her speech was that of the servant class—except when it wasn’t. On occasion a few words slipped out that were purely of the aristocratic sort. When she was tired, she sounded more like a proper young miss about to make her come-out than a nurse-companion at the beck and call of a monster.
“Mmm,” said the Marquise, a slight smile curving her glorious lips. Odd that only her mouth and eyes should show no sign of the disease wasting her body. “Hideous, but soothing.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Is that you, Gerard?”
Miranda looked up sharply. Ah, so she hadn’t noticed him. She wasn’t as attuned to his presence as he was to hers. Pity. Or a challenge. The broth sloshed in the bowl. She stilled the bowl with a quick gesture.
“I thought I smelled your filthy rotten person,” continued the Marquise.
“I wonder why I take the trouble to bathe at all. It seems to have no effect.”
“Some things can’t be washed away,” said the Marquise darkly.
“Indeed. A fact that must be greatly on your mind these days.”
Miranda’s drab breast rose and fell with a long breath. The Marquis, through close observation, knew how the corrosive relationship between her employers upset her. She wasn’t a member of the haut ton, which considered their vitriolic barbs weapons in a highly enjoyable spectator sport.
“As a matter of fact, it is. I want to make a will.”
“May I point out that the ritual emasculating of the males in your vicinity does not confer maleness upon you?”
“Women make wills.”
“If they have possessions of which to dispose. Everything you have belongs to me.”
She’d come to him with nothing. She’d been no one—less than no one. She’d been an actress reduced to performing sexual scenarios in French brothels when he’d become obsessed with her and married her to spite his family. Instead of being grateful, she’d proceeded to unleash the full force of her rage on him and the society in which he lived.
“Or perhaps you have some small mementoes of your former life? Handcuffs? A whip?”
Miranda gave a tiny flinch, invisible save to someone as highly observant as the Marquis. “Must you…?” She burst out, then subsided back into her usual invisibility.
“It’s not your concern,” the Marquise told her sharply. “I intend to pass on as I have been, no better, no worse. The one quality of my husband I have always appreciated, aside from his talented cock, is his honesty. I expect no less now.”
A slow wave of crimson crept up Miranda’s delicate cheeks. She averted her face. From this side, she looked like the most perfect of angels, a Madonna in dun-colored muslin. From the other side, Gerard knew, she looked like a hideously malformed ogre.
“Must you embarrass the girl?” murmured Gerard.
“In my employ, she’s already seen and heard more than most Covent Garden whores.”
Miranda busied herself with the bowl and spoon. Gerard would have paid a handsome sum to know what was passing through her thoughts at that moment. Whatever it was made her hands tremble and her pulse quicken. He could feel it f
rom across the room.
As an experiment, he rose to his feet and lazily strolled closer. The Marquise held up one commanding hand. “Some distance, if you please.”
The Marquis halted. He had no need to go closer; he had his answer. The girl’s pulse was skittering like that of a trapped mouse. So he unnerved her. Hardly a surprise. He unnerved most people, except for his dear, soon-to-be-departed wife.
And the three lovers who had become the true home of his heart.
He returned to the armchair and rested his head on one hand. “May I remind you, my vicious one, that you requested my presence here today?”
The Marquise motioned to Miranda for a sip of water. The girl held it to her lips. When she withdrew the cup, the Marquise’s lips glowed ruby red and wet. “I had no choice. You are, despite my most determined efforts to cuckold you in the most humiliating ways possible, still my husband.”
Gerard barely blinked. The days when she could hurt him with her treachery were long over. “Your lord and master, in fact.”
She bared her teeth. “Do you know, Gerard, that I can pinpoint the precise date you ceased caring about anything I did?”
“I’m surprised you would even notice such an event.”
She patted her mouth with her lace handkerchief. “It ruined my fun. Of course I noticed it. I’ve always wanted to know exactly what goes on at Warrington House.”
The Marquis smiled darkly. “Did you now?”
“There’s no need for secrets now, is there? I even paid a footman to report back with anything untoward.”
“Then you know all there is to know.”
“Indeed not. Apparently he received a better offer.”
The Marquis snorted. The Duke of Warrington was no sap, nor was his lady love, Lady Alicia, nor, for that matter, was Lady Alicia’s husband, the Earl of Dorchester, the Duke’s heir. “Foiled again, I see.”
“I don’t suppose you would submit to a dying woman’s request and reveal all, would you?”
Hellfire. “No,” he said shortly. Even on her deathbed, he didn’t trust his wife. And his secrets did not belong only to him.
“Ma’am,” said Miranda softly, “I must go fetch your willow bark tea.”
“Then go,” she said with her accustomed irritation. “You need not inform me of each and every thing you do in the course of a day.”
“No ma’am.” Miranda carefully put the bowl on the side table, settled the tray under her arm and stepped quietly to the door.
“Can you make that swill taste any better?” the Marquise called after her.
“I’ll see what can be done.” Miranda’s tranquil voice floated from the corridor. It baffled Gerard that she managed to retain that air of fragile serenity under the constant barrage of the Marquise’s nastiness.
“You don’t deserve that girl,” he told his wife. “I’m shocked she hasn’t turned tail by now.”
“Where would she go? Who else would hire a monstrous-looking chit like that? Still, I agree she’s been a great comfort during this past year. Her desperation and mine have been of mutual benefit.”
Desperation? Gerard didn’t like hearing such a word applied to the gentle Miranda. But why wouldn’t she be desperate? How many households would be willing to hire a girl with such a terrible mark on her face?
“I’d like to make certain she isn’t ill-treated after I’m gone.”
Gerard gazed at his wife in astonishment. He couldn’t recall her ever, in the fifteen years they’d been married, expressing any concern for the well-being of any other creature unless it benefited her.
“But you’ll be dead,” he pointed out.
“Indeed.”
“Her gratitude will do you no good.”
“Maybe I’m trusting this one final kind thought will help me into heaven.”
“That’s a heavy burden to place on one thought.”
The Marquise pulled herself into a sitting position. For a moment, Gerard was shocked at how much more flesh she’d lost since the last time he’d seen her. She resembled a skeleton wrapped in nearly transparent skin. She looked tiny in the huge four-poster with its luxurious bounty of gold-embroidered pillows. Her bedchamber, decorated in erotically ornate tones of scarlet and bronze, had always had the air of an Ottoman harem. The only difference he could see now was the absence of the mirror she’d once installed over the bed.
Watching oneself fuck was probably much more enjoyable than watching oneself die.
“Gerard. Pay attention.” She snapped her fingers at him. “We’re discussing my dying wishes. Show a little respect.”
He tilted his head. “As you command.”
“I’m talking about my nurse, Miranda. The reason she’s never left me is that she owes me her life. I found her in a brothel.”
The Marquis’ whole body tightened.
“Her job was to tend to the whores who became diseased. I feel certain she would have contracted something sooner or later. I convinced her that her chances of survival would be much higher if she became my private nurse.”
“One Marquise de Beaumont versus a brothel full of whores. Some might say she made a strange choice.”
A glimmer of a smile ghosted across her white face. “Since, according to you, I cannot make a will, I’ll make a request. I want you to find her a decent position after I’m gone. I don’t want her to return to the brothel, or to the lepers or the hospital or to any of the places she may see as her only choice. She has a gift for bringing ease. Many times I’ve awoken in the blackest frame of mind, prepared to commit murder or worse, only to find my mood lightened by a touch or a word from that girl.”
The Marquis stayed silent out of sheer bafflement. He’d waited fifteen years for evidence of a heart beneath his wife’s icy exterior. Who would have guessed a plain, quiet nurse would bring it to the fore?
“In many ways,” mused the Marquise, fingering the lace on her pillowcase, “this past year has been one of the sweetest I remember, thanks to her. She’s given me more kindness than I likely deserve.”
The Marquis could think of no good answer to that. “You despise me. Why would you trust me to do anything for you once you’re gone?”
“An excellent question. Yes, I despise you. But not you, in and of yourself. I despise what you represent. Power. Arrogance. Gratification of one’s needs.”
“Unless they happen to be yours.”
“Did I say that I don’t despise myself? I’ve gloried in my own selfishness, I’ve reveled in it. But that poor child out there has devoted herself to me heart and soul for the past year. I owe her.”
The glittering iridescent eyes softened. Her eyelids drooped and suddenly she looked extremely tired. The Marquis jumped to his feet, ready to adjust a pillow or some other task, but once more she put up a determined hand.
“I don’t love you. I spent my married years venting my hatred on you. But I know you to be a man of honor. You may be the most infamous rake in England, but you are also someone who doesn’t prevaricate. And so I am placing my trust in you. Will you honor my last request?”
She gave a light cough, which nearly masked the light tap on the door that signaled Miranda’s return. “Enter,” she said, still coughing.
Miranda hurried in, the tray laden with another steaming dish. She stopped in her tracks at the sound of the Marquise’s racking cough. “Milady, I beg your pardon, one of the footmen knocked against me, completely by accident, of course, and I was forced to brew another pot of willow bark tea. Please, no more talking. Please, my lord, she must rest.” Her alarm was so great, she actually turned and met the Marquis’ gaze. Big, clear brown eyes, the color of the finest Earl Grey tea, framed with thick sable lashes, pleaded with him.
“Your word,” insisted the Marquise, as Miranda brought the tea to her lips.
He nodded reluctantly. What, precisely, was he promising?
“Ma’am, please drink. I beg you.”
Satisfied, the Marquise took a long swallow of wil
low bark tea, then made a face. “Horrid. Absolutely horrid. Girl, I’ve made him promise. He’s good for it. When I’m gone, he’ll look after you.”
“Yes, milady,” said Miranda absently, catching a drop of tea on her fingertip before it stained the lace of the coverlet.
The Marquise grabbed her wrist. “Do you hear me? He’ll take care of you. He’ll be your master. Him.” She indicated Gerard with a graceful motion of her head. Abruptly, Miranda straightened. Appalled brown eyes swiveled his direction. Hot tea cascaded over the edge of the dish. The Marquise’s gasp echoed through the sudden stillness.
“Him?”
Gerard inclined his head with his most sardonic air. “A promise is a promise.”
Chapter Two
Beaumont House—The Marquise’s dressing room
Lying awake at night in a state of worry wasn’t unusual for me. Ever since I’d run away from my guardian, the Vicious Viscount—as I called him—I’d encountered one dangerous situation after another, each more dire than the next. The Marquise had seemed to be a reprieve, as unlikely as that seems. I knew she was a bitter, horrible woman. I knew she derived enjoyment from the suffering of others. I knew some sort of monstrous pain infected her soul. But once I began caring for her, she became my patient and I ceased to pass judgment upon her. We’d got on fairly well, all in all.
But could it be that she’d been storing all her cruelty for one final act?
The notorious Marquis de Beaumont—my master?
In the dark, my face burned as I recalled some of the Marquise’s stories about her husband. At Eton he’d been caught in bed with three students and a professor—at the same time. He was equally voracious with men and women, and his sexual appetites knew no bounds. He’d once kidnapped another man’s mistress, chained her in a dungeon and tormented her until she crawled to him on her knees, begging for his… I blushed even to think it. How she could crawl when she was chained, I failed to see. On occasion I would wonder if all the Marquise’s stories were true. But it was not my place to question. If I questioned, she might stop her tales, and that… I couldn’t bear.